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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27536683">Freedom Come</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/SecretFandomStories/pseuds/SecretFandomStories'>SecretFandomStories</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Black Sails</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Alternate Universe - Road Trip, Charles Vane Lives (Black Sails), Eventual Happy Ending, F/F, Gen, Mental Health Issues, Minor Eleanor Guthrie/Charles Vane, Pirate Abigail Ashe, Platonic Female/Male Relationships, Platonic Relationships, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 16:20:30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>12,516</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27536683</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/SecretFandomStories/pseuds/SecretFandomStories</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“She’s worth more to me than money. She’s the future of this place.”</p><p>This is an AU that picks up early in Season Two, diverging when Vane kills Ned Low and secures Abigail Ashe as his hostage. It explores the implications of his attempts to ransom her as she struggles to make sense of the dangerous new world she now inhabits. This is largely a gen fic, with background canon pairings of Charles/Eleanor, Charles/Jack, Jack/Anne, Flint/Thomas, and Flint/Miranda.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Abigail Ashe &amp; Charles Vane, Abigail Ashe/OFC, Charles Vane &amp; Abigail Ashe</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Black Sails, Black Sails Femslash, Black Sails Rarepair Ficathon - Round 1</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/laughingmistress/gifts">laughingmistress</a>.</li>



    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Abigail wakes to a heavy hand shaking her shoulder. A scream rises in her throat, but she shuts her lips tightly on it. Surely screaming is worse than talking, and the one-eyed pirate had said clearly that she was not to talk. The man crouching above her pallet has two eyes, much more hair, and a great deal of blood all over him. The scream fills her mouth again. </p><p>Over the rushing in her ears Abigail barely hears him tell her, "I have not come to harm you. Do you understand?" He shakes her until she nods mutely. "Good," he mutters, taking her small hand in his rough, sticky one and pulling her bodily to her feet. She reels as she tries to stand upright for the first time in days, the lingering effects of the laudanum she'd been dosed with making her limbs feel heavy and stiff. The man pulls her against him closely enough that she can smell him, sweat and leather and over it all the sweet, metallic tang of drying blood.</p><p>Acid rises in her throat, and Abigail pulls away to bend double and retch. There is no food in her stomach, no strength in her limbs, and the deck beneath her pitches precariously. Beside her the man is speaking again. "You are not safe, your virtue is not safe until you are behind a door to which I hold the key. Do you-"</p><p>"I understand," Abigail cuts him off more sharply than she intends to, swallowed bile making her throat raw. "I understand you," she repeats, modulating her voice as graciously as she can manage. "Do you understand who I am?" With the question she draws herself up to her full, less than significant height, hands clasped in front of her. She looks up at him boldly. If he strikes her for her impertinence, she will know he is a liar. </p><p>He does not. "Miss Ashe," he says, dropping her name like coins in a bucket, "if you understood who I am and what I have just done, you would not stand here talking. You would come the f- you would come along. Now." He gestures toward the broken door of her cabin as a footman might. Abigail goes. </p><p>On deck hairy, burly men as blood-spattered as the tall one beside her but damper and ranker are lowering the longboats from the deck into the water and climbing down after them. A few gawk at her as Abigail allows herself to be helped down into one of the boats. Her delicately-heeled leather slippers catch on the rough rungs of the swaying rope ladder and her skirts. She nearly loses both shoes before she collapses into an ungainly heap in the bottom of a longboat. </p><p>For a moment there are no hands on her, only the wind around her, cries from men on the ship above and gulls around. Her stomach is still empty, her limbs still shaky, but the open air feels like a kind of freedom. </p><p>No one touches her on the ride to shore. No one speaks to her, and so she does not speak. No polite subjects of conversation exist for the circumstance, and even if Abigail could think of something to say, she is not certain that she would want to give it voice. She listens, though, to the tall man the others call Captain, to the way they speak to him. Pirates, all of them, she reasons: enemies perhaps of the ones who had kidnapped her from the Good Fortune. She is not free, therefore. She is a different sort of prisoner, safer perhaps but no less a hostage.</p><p>The boats, Abigail notices, do not make for the lights on the beach. They row past them down the coast, with all lanterns darkened. A secret approach and a landing on a dark, rocky stretch of coast tell her that her new captors value a surreptitious approach to Nassau. She has heard the name used between them, remembers from her geography lessons that this is a town of the colony of New Providence Island, of which her father’s friend, Lord Alfred Hamilton, was the proprietor until his death at the hand of pirates a few years ago. She supposes after that that his estate reverted to the crown, since his heir had died a lunatic in Bethlem Hospital in London.</p><p>It had been a sad affair that Abigail remembers hearing her father speak of in hushed tones at dinner when she was six. Lady Hamilton, who had been a frequent guest in the Ashes’ drawing room, had been indiscreet with her husband’s friend, a naval officer. What had become of them Abigail had never heard. No doubt a disgraceful fate of some kind, with poor young Lord Hamilton mad with grief over their betrayal. Mad and dead soon after, Abigail’s father had said. So now there are no Hamiltons on New Providence Island from which she might ask aid. </p><p>It is a lawless place now where violence and vice hold sway. She understands now what the Captain had said to her, that her virtue would not be safe unless behind a locked door. So when she feels the longboat pulled up onto land, she climbs ungracefully out of it before someone can haul her out. She follows gingerly, her slippers sliding and filling with sand, the lace on her petticoats catching on scrubby bushes in the dark. Perhaps they have a camp in the jungle, she thinks, but no, he had said a door. A house, perhaps, with food and water. With a bed. Abigail will not let herself think of any of it for longer than a moment. </p><p>It is neither a camp or a house that seems to be their destination, but a kind of shanty with a only front door and steps inside that lead down into the sandy earth. A cavern of sorts. At first Abigail balks at the thought of descending. The men in front of her pause and the ones behind crowd against her. To escape them she stumbles forward and when their arms reach out to catch her she rights herself and continues down. Guttering torches lit in front of them barely illumine the narrow earthworks, shored up precariously by rotting timbers. How strange it would be to die here, Abigail thinks, deep in the earth, and as she does there are more rude stairs ahead and the ground slopes up into them. </p><p>They emerge not into the open air but inside walls Abigail can barely see but senses in the dark. Stone walls, stone steps. A wooden door, another cell is opened for her, and this time she does not balk. She steps inside and expects to feel it shut behind her, but the Captain steps inside as well. He is the one who shuts it, putting it between them and the men outside it. The torch in his hand shows the confines of the cell, and with it he lights the brazier in middle of it. It wavers and then catches, and he steps back with the torch, his hand reaching for the door.</p><p>“How long do you intend to keep me here?” Abigail asks quickly. The trek has exhausted her, but she cannot sleep with the dryness in her throat, the hollowness in her stomach, and the pressure in her bladder.</p><p>The Captain looks at her for a moment as though he had forgotten that she could speak, but then his face sets in a grim smile. “I don’t know,” he says plainly. “Until I receive the ransom Low intended to demand for you.”</p><p>“In the meantime, then,” replies Abigail, watching his brows lift with every word, “I cannot do without food and drink. And a chamberpot. And a bed.”</p><p>He is scoffing at her before she finishes speaking. “We have no comforts here.”</p><p>“Those are not comforts, sir,” she  retorts, her voice far stronger than she feels. “They are common necessities.”</p><p>He considers this for a moment before giving a curious sideways tilt of his head. The blood matted in his hair shines dully in the firelight. How can he bear it, Abigail wonders, though her own curls are greasy and tangled, full of salt and sand. She longs for a bath and perfumed soap, things he surely would consider ridiculous luxuries. She has no power to argue otherwise, so she does not mention them, does not speak when he leaves.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He returns after she has resigned herself to sleeping on the straw-littered floor and is in the process of making herself a mound to lie on. He carries a bundle in one hand and a bucket of water in the other and looks down at her curiously. There is no softness that she can see in the angular lines of his face, but there is questioning. Abigail decides that she will not give him the satisfaction of a rude answer.</p><p>She rises to her feet and draws herself up as he sets down the bucket and holds the bundle out to her. “Eat. Wash,” he says, as though she does not want to rush to do them the moment he is gone.</p><p>Abigail does not accept the things immediately. She inclines her head to him as civilly as she can muster, her knees wobble into the suggestion of a curtsey, and then she grabs for the bundle. He looks as though he is laughing but no sound emerges. “Sleep,” he adds as a final terse command. </p><p>She has had enough of sleep even though she feels ready to drop, but she nods to this too. Before he leaves he moves the brazier over to the wall with a slit set high in it so that the smoke will not fill the room. Abigail watches him curiously, unmoving from where she stands. Half of her wishes that he would speak, and the rest never wants to anyone in the world say anything to her ever again. </p><p>She hears him lock the door, hears his steps recede, and then goes to test the lock for herself. She is indeed a prisoner again, and why that fact should comfort her she does not know. Sinking down against the door she pulls the heavy bucket of water to her, sloshing it over her arms as she does. Abigail buries her face in it and laps like a dog. She drinks as much as she can reach and then palms more over her face. It spills down her neck and soaks her chemise and stays. Nothing has ever felt more cooling and wonderful. </p><p>Half the laces on her stays are loose anyway, some tangled beyond repair, and so she loosens them and sets them aside, then slips out of her overdress. The room is close and smoky, humid from the air outside. In only her chemise and petticoats she draws close enough to the brazier to open the bundle and examine its contents. A wooden comb, an oilcloth packet of dried meat, a cake of hard tallow soap, and a smooth green lime, all wrapped in a rough linsey-woolsey blanket. Such jumbled gifts, but she spreads them out on the stone flags and looks over them as though they are shining treasures. </p><p>Making use of them must wait until she has crouched in the corner to relieve herself, since clearly a chamberpot remains among the unheard of comforts in Nassau. That embarrassing task completed, Abigail curls in the opposite corner with her blanket and her mound of straw and begins to comb the knots out of the ends of her hair. She has not contracted vermin, she tells herself, nor any other kind of ill. She is sound of mind and body, and her captors see the value of keeping her so until her father ransoms her. </p><p>Abigail works the pins from her hair that her maid wound it up in so many days earlier. Kind, quiet Anna with her clever fingers, who had been with her since she started at Mistress Peters’ seminary. Abigail cannot bring herself to imagine the poor girl’s fate, and she will not cry over it. She resolves to mourn her maid privately in her heart, to say prayers for her as she does for her mother and small brother, buried together in London so many thousands of miles away.</p><p>She gathers seven hairpins all together in a neat row and admires them while she chews on a tasteless piece of dried meat. Hairpins are comforts, surely. The fine cotton lawn of her chemise is a comfort, as is the boning of her stays, laid aside but close to hand. Her sweat-stained stockings, eased off and set beside her slippers, all these fine things in this strange place. Abigail keeps them in view as she bites delicately at the lime’s peel and sucks the bitter juice from it. The weeks at sea have not loosened her teeth, but perhaps in Nassau even teeth are comforts. </p><p>Slumped against the wall, she slips into sleep with the pieces of the lime still clutched in her hand and does not wake until there is a knock on the door. For a disoriented moment, she thinks that she must be in the little cabin aboard the Good Fortune that she had shared with Anna for so many weeks, but the stone flags beneath her are solid, and Anna is dead. The knock comes again, this time more insistent. Abigail draws herself up, wrapping her gown around her as she does so, and says what she would if any civilized person had knocked on her door at home: “You may come in,” in a kind and welcoming voice.</p><p>It is the Captain again, this time with two buckets of water, a log for the brazier, and something soft thrown over his shoulder. At first Abigail cannot imagine why he would come himself, why he would knock, but then she supposes that perhaps he does not trust his men with her. She feels privately glad for his strange, brusque courtesy. </p><p>He does not speak at first, only sets the buckets down and eyes her. “Good...afternoon,” Abigail says carefully. She is not entirely certain what the time of day is, nor if her manners will be scoffed at. </p><p>“Morning,” he says, and as her eyes adjust to the light streaming in through the door, she sees that he has washed his hair in the interim and changed his shirt from a dark blue one to a green, though he still has neither neckcloth nor waistcoat, and he wears the same scuffed leather trousers and boots from the night before. </p><p>While she is marveling at the fact that even pirates have some clean habits, he speaks. She does not quite hear him, but when she begs his pardon, he scoffs and repeats himself. “I said, can you write a fair hand?”</p><p>“Yes, of course,” she says. Madame Demarnay had praised her penmanship. But literate men must be few here, so perhaps it is strange to him that she might possess this skill. A captain, she’d thought, must be able to write dispatches and keep the ship’s log. She had often seen Captain Kneeland doing so aboard the Good Fortune, though perhaps pirates saw no need for such records. </p><p>In front of her, the Captain continues, “Then write something for me. Not one of these sons of--of the men at my disposal have so much as a letter between them.” He sounds frustrated and a little wistful, and so wordlessly Abigail holds out her hand for the quill and rough paper he produces from inside his shirt. </p><p>He has brought no inkwell, though, and while he goes to fetch it Abigail traces out the words he’d told her ought to appear on the bill: I angered Charles Vane. The parchment is long enough that she intends to stack the words atop each other like a tower. ‘Charles’ is the longest. Charles, the name on her little brother’s grave so far away, and so she will make it fill the page from side to side. </p><p>Charles Vane, however, is a name she has heard before and read in pamphlets, one of the pirate Blackbeard’s minions, though no word has been heard from Teach himself for many years. Charles Vane is a name feared in England. She has read of his exploits in her father’s letters beside those of Captains Flint and Hornigold. She had imagined him as an old man with a wicked yellow grimace and a sword in each hand. Captain Vane has a knife in his sash, but it is no larger than the one she used to cut her meat with at dinner. It is no jagged cutlass dripping with the blood of innocents.</p><p>By the time she has ink to write with, Abigail has sketched out her notice. She outlines each of the letters carefully while Captain Vane crouches in front of her and squints at her work. The scrutiny and the rough surface make her hands shake, and the letters wobble across the page as they never did at her little desk at home. </p><p>As she is daubing ink into the outlines to fill out the letters, she gathers the courage to ask, “Who is it who has angered you?” The question almost sticks in her throat, but the silence must be broken. There is too much of it. </p><p>The question gives Captain Vane enough pause in answering that Abigail looks up at him from blowing on the ink to dry it, since he brought her no pounce to sprinkle on it. “Low,” he tells her finally, and at the question in her eyes he goes on, “Captain Low. Your captor. I cut off his head.”</p><p>Nausea rises in Abigail’s throat at the thought, and then she thinks of the evil way Low’s eye ran over her, the way he had watched after his men seized her and poured laudanum down her throat, how he had lifted a scarf taken from her trunk to his nose and inhaled sensually.</p><p>“How did he anger you?” she asks when she can keep her voice calm enough to say the words. </p><p>“He challenged me.” The answer comes more easily. “He threatened someone dear to me. And he held an asset of great value.”</p><p>Abigail’s stomach turns over when she realizes that the asset in question is herself. She opens her mouth to answer and then closes it again. What can she say in her own defense? She is an asset to him. Not a woman or a person. Not a soul. She is only an asset, though perhaps this means that he values her more than he would if she were merely a woman. Abigail has heard stories of the terrible things pirates do to women. “You are Charles Vane,” she says softly, because it is incontrovertible and inoffensive.</p><p>“I am,” he agrees, sounding faintly pleased. “My word holds sway here, and so no harm will come to you.”</p><p>He looks at her as though he hopes that the words will reassure her, but Abigail’s hope quails in the face of them. “Enough harm has come to me already,” she tells him. </p><p>“Here?” he retorts, gesturing around the cell as though to indicate the lack of torturous instruments inside. “Who has harmed you here?”</p><p>Abigail is angry enough at the question to rise to her feet, and he follows soon after. She looks up at him with a question of her own. “Am I home? Do you intend to return me to my father posthaste? Your own words give the lie to that.”</p><p>His lips purse mutinously before he snatches the notice from her and turns on his heel to leave. An impulse rises up in her to shout after him, to rail at him, but Abigail tells herself that she is no shrew. She is a gentlewoman with a meek and quiet mien. “We must possess our souls in patience,” Anna would say. </p><p>Abigail sinks down and moves the ink bottle and quill to align with her other comforts. He has taken the only parchment with him, but she determines that if she scratches with it a little that she can make a mark in ink on the stone of the wall. </p><p>She makes two for the number of days before eating the remainder of the dessicated lime and then each piece of dried meat one by one. Her teeth ache after she finishes but her stomach is full. Abigail tends to her hair and face and then washes out her stockings in one of the buckets of water after she drinks her fill of it. Feeling a little refreshed, she takes up her hair pins and twists her hair up at the nape of her neck. Not a fashionable style, but neat and sober, such as she has seen Puritan woman cover with a mob cap or kerchief. </p><p>Anna would plait her hair before bed, would comb it and dress it before they laid down together in the low hanging bed in their cabin, would pin it up in the morning as she had done every morning for years, since Abigail’s mother had died and her curls had been pinned under dark lace before the journey to the church for the funeral. Anna would have no funeral.</p><p>Abigail knows that she ought to mourn, but she has no mourning to wear, no church in which to pray. Around her the room is dim, and so it takes her some time to realize that the soft pile Captain Vane dropped in front of her is not a drift of straw but tailored cloth: a threadbare calico skirt with faded pink stripes and brass buttons running up the sides. Not a garment she would ever commision a seamstress to make for her, but it smells clean and fragrant with lavender. </p><p>She unwraps herself from her overdress and unties her petticoats before slipping into the skirt. Her stays remain with her comforts and the castoff portions of her wardrobe. Abigail crouches in front of the brazier in her chemise and new skirt, wrapped in the shawl that had been bundled with the skirt. Pale purple wool in a fine knit, she examines it to see it it might be a pattern she could pick apart and duplicate given a skein of yarn. </p><p>The weave is stretched but sturdy, and the wool comforts her. It is not a comfort, though. If Captain Vane delivered it to her, it is a necessity and Abigail treats it as such, wrapping herself in it to sleep beside the brazier, her body between the door and her treasures.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When she wakes, the light is pinker and so Abigail marks another line for the day and rises. She washes her face and combs out her hair. And then she waits. It is no use pressing her face to the small barred window in the door. She would have to jump to reach it and then hang there in an undignified way until someone passed by to laugh at her predicament. </p><p>A lady is dignified, said Madame Frenard, and Abigail had tried to excel in deportment. She could lay a table with a full a china service and preside over tea, but here she had not even a table, much less a china cup or saucer. Dignity she could claim to possess, though, even in her chemise and gifted shawl.</p><p>This time when Captain Vane came he knocked only shortly before entering and held held nothing but a steaming wooden bowl with a rude wooden spoon in it. Abigail does not question the murky broth when he offers it to her. She has half of it drunk minutes after she has thanked him for the meal and the rest finished as his steps recede. He returns with a second bowl just as Abigail has resigned herself to using the stinking corner again. </p><p>“Have you eaten enough? Are you comfortable?” He looks as though he regrets the questions as soon as the words are out of his mouth, and to avoid angering him Abigail considers her reply instead of retorting right away. But she will not be untruthful.</p><p>“I am not comfortable,” she says carefully after a long moment, though she feels that this ought to be self-evident to him. “I am not free. I have no privacy, no pastimes. But I have eaten enough, thank you.” She sets the second bowl of soup down carefully with her treasures behind her. It will be cold when she feels hungry next, but the assurance of its presence is worth more than the heat in her belly would be at that moment. She does not know if she could bear it if he took it away.</p><p>Captain Vane’s eyes flick from her to the items laid out behind her to the window slit high in the wall but the rest of his face remains motionless. Somehow this is more frightening than outright anger would be. Abigail quails, her shoulders sinking and her gaze falling to the floor. </p><p>He seems to notice this too, because his next words are softer, though he still sounds like he regrets them. “It is afternoon, and today is Tuesday, I think. What would you do at home to pass the time now?”</p><p>“At school,” she corrects him, and then bites her tongue on the rudeness. “I was at seminary in London. On Tuesdays the dancing master came. We studied geography after the noon meal and then had a walk before dinner.” As she says the words they sound so ridiculous to her, as though they were not worth even giving voice.</p><p>He makes a little scoffing laugh and then seems to think the better of his rudeness, as well. “Geography? Can you read a chart? A map?” As Abigail nods, he is already turning on his heel and crossing to the door, which he leaves carefully ajar, though he shoots her a warning look as he does so. </p><p>He is back in moments, a sheaf of papers in his arms. Abigail recognizes them as naval charts like the ones Captain Kneeland would often study after dinner in the evenings. Captain Vane kneels down to spread them out on the floor, and Abigail crouches opposite him to look as he indicates each chart. “This shows the Bahama Islands, and here is Nassau Town and its fort, where you are my guest.” He weights the last word with irony that is almost gentle, and so Abigail gives him a careful small smile.</p><p>She recognizes the coastline on one chart and draws it closer to the brazier to examine. “Here is Charles Town,” she points it out to him and is rewarded with a small smile in turn. In the warm light his face is angular, stern, but not unpleasant. “And...Spanish Florida and the Americas.”<br/>He sits back on his heels. “I’ve sailed with men who could not pick out half that much.” The words sound grudgingly impressed. </p><p>“I wished to learn where my father governed. The places he wrote to me of. Where he-” Where he had hunted pirates. Abigail stops before she can give voice to something that might anger him, though surely Captain must know her father’s reputation if the name was familiar to him.</p><p>“He wrote to you often, then?” The question saves her from having to think of something to say. Abigail nods. “And you wrote back, I suppose.” Captain Vane seems to be thinking. “You ought to write to him again, then, with news of your...change in fortunes. Tell him that the price of seeing you delivered safely to him in Charles Town is two hundred and fifty thousand pounds.”</p><p>Abigail’s mind reels at the number. It feels difficult to even conceive of such a sum. She has never even seen a letter of credit for so much, much less pound notes. That Captain Vane should believe her worth so much, that he might require her father to pay so much, defies her imagination. She looks up at him open-mouthed.</p><p>He must see that his words have given her pause, because he goes on in the same level tone. “Your father has a dowry for you, does he not? He will pay me or pay a husband, either way. Unless you believe he won’t? Does he not care for you?”</p><p>So many private questions make Abigail close her mouth and consider. Good manners forbid her from answering impertinence with impertinence, and he said the words so plainly that they hardly even sounded impudent. Marriage was a prospect that had often given her anxious pause. She had often felt like she was looking in at the window of London society, and had been content to do so from time to time before returning to the books and school gossip of Mistress Peter’s seminary. </p><p>“If my father intended to me to marry in London, he would not have sent for me in Carolina,” she says slowly, carefully. “Perhaps he has a man in mind there. Perhaps not.”</p><p>Captain Vane looks at her with unconcealed boredom. “Carolina is a prosperous colony. It’s not his wealth I doubt. It’s his will.”</p><p>“I am his only daughter,” Abigail says. Each letter signed ‘Your Loving Father’. Each one addressed ‘To My Dearest Daughter.’ “You wish to put a price on my father’s love? He will pay it.”</p><p>This is met with only an expressive shrug. “It’s only your life. If he cares nothing for you, there is a naval garrison on Harbor Island.” He places his finger on the chart without taking his eyes off of her. “The commander there would return you to your father or to London or anywhere else you cared to go. But if I return you to Charles Town myself, I intend to leave with that sum. Not a penny less.”</p><p>“Or you will kill me.” The words escape Abigail’s lips barely above a whisper. She has not dared look down to where he points. Her eyes remain on his narrowed gray ones. </p><p>He shrugs again. “It would bring me no joy. This isn’t personal, any of it.”</p><p>“It is very personal to me,” Abigail reminds him, as calmly as she can. It will do her no good to become hysterical, to lose any regard she has gained from him by falling to pieces. </p><p>Instead of arguing, he nods soberly. “It’s your life.” His hands twitch beside him as though looking for something to grasp, and then he rolls his shoulders and his fingers still. “I need a drink,” he says to the air in the corner of her cell. </p><p>Abigail’s mouth opens a little at this flat non sequitur, and she watches in disbelief as he turns on his heel and stalks out. He leaves the door ajar, though, with a sharp look at her before his face softens and he holds out a hand. “Come on.”</p><p>The impatience in his voice makes her hurry to slip her shoes on and gather the shawl around her before she follows at a trot. He does not help her through the darkness of the corridor nor offer her his arm down the roughhewn stairs, but nor does he stride very far ahead of her. Abigail trips only once on the overlong skirt, and he pauses ahead of her and waits. They encounter no one on their journey down through the bowels of the fort and then through a door and down another corridor. Through the slitted windows the light shines bright patterns on the stones but the air Abigail breathes in is cool and damp, scented with earth and smoke.</p>
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<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Captain Vane leads her through a narrow door and into a room with a wide hearth, a desk littered with more charts like the ones left back in her cell, and a nest of furs and bolsters in the corner. Light from a high glass window and many torches on the walls illumine it. Captain Vane reaches immediately for a bottle that stands on the desk and takes a long drink straight from it. Why this uncouthness should feel more horrifying to her than anything previous Abigail cannot say, but she is taken aback. He must notice, because he rolls his eyes and puts the bottle down and goes to take two tarnished goblets from the rude shelf near the makeshift bed. He pours both full and holds one out to Abigail.</p><p>She takes it out of courtesy and holds it uncertainly while he empties his and then sprawls in the chair behind the desk. “Drink,” he says, gesturing with the bottle. “Sit.” He indicates another chair with tattered upholstery nearby. Abigail sits gingerly and sips with equal caution. The wine is thick and bitter but it wets her dry throat. She swallows several mouthfuls. When she looks up from the cup he is watching her with something like approval. </p><p>“I am not careless with things of value,” he says after a moment, leveling a gaze at her. “Have I been careless with you?”</p><p>Abigail shakes her head a little and then takes another gulp of wine. The welcome warmth of it pools in her stomach, stronger than the sour stuff served at Sunday dinner at seminary, sweeter than the glass she had taken with Captain Kneeland on occasion in his quarters after dinner.</p><p>“Then write to your father. He ought to care for you far more, should he not?” He stands and offers the chair at the desk to her, then takes a fresh quill from the drawer and begins to trim it with the knife in his belt. </p><p>Abigail finishes her wine and accepts the chair. She searches through the papers that litter the desk for a blank one. So much correspondence, perhaps some of it importance, and yet he seems to care little for it. She doubts his literacy but says nothing. His knife is still in his hand. </p><p>He soon puts it away and offers her the quill, though. She dips it and writes quickly. The words come in fits and starts under his scrutiny, and it is small comfort that he likely knows none of them. Abigail is used to writing to her father, but this is for a much different purpose. </p><p>When she finishes she offers him the parchment and reaches to pour herself another cup of wine, made bold by the first and anxious by the ordeal of composing her own ransom note. He peruses it briefly, uncomprehendingly, and then folds it and tucks it into the wide sash at his waist.</p><p>Taking the bottle to drink from, he sits back and watches her sift through the papers. “Take them, if you like. They were not written to me.” Abigail can see as much, but she sorts the letters and papers into a neat pile with the charts rolled together next to them. The motions and the wine warming her veins settle her, and she sits back in the chair to watch him rise and take her letter away. </p><p>There is not so great a distance for it to travel. Perhaps there will be a reply in a week. Perhaps less. She does not dare to hope. By the time Captain Vane returns she has risen to pace around the room, first drawing close to the hearth to warm herself then crossing to the window to stand on tiptoe even though she is too short to see out of it. She turns to find him watching her from the doorway. “This is your home?” she asks carefully.</p><p>He shrugs and comes to lean against the desk. “As much of one as any.”</p><p>Since he took no offense to the question, she presses on, “Were you born here? On New Providence?”</p><p>He shakes his head, which gives her pause. “Don’t know where I was born. Not far from here, probably.”</p><p>Abigail’s mouth falls open a little. She is not certain how it’s possible not to know where one was born, where one’s home is. “But your parents—” she begins, and then stifles her own rudeness. </p><p>“Don’t know them, either.” He says it so matter-of-factly that Abigail is taken even more aback. </p><p>She composes herself after a moment and inclines her head. “I am very sorry.” She finds it in her heart to mean the words as she says them. A orphan, no doubt brought up without the guidance of loving parents such as hers. It is no wonder that he fell into evil ways.</p><p>When she raises her eyes, he is watching her. “I’ve never heard that Lord Ashe had a wife,” he says finally.</p><p>“My mother died many years ago.” Tears no longer rise in her throat at the thought. “Before my father sailed for Carolina.” Still, she cannot bring herself to say more.</p><p>He watches her a moment longer and then looks down onto the dusty stone between them. “I’m sorry,” he says to the floor, though his words are sincere. After another long silence he reaches out for her hand. When she takes it, he says, “It must be worse, having known her, to lose her. No doubt she loved you.” He squeezes her fingers a little before letting go.</p><p>He reaches for another bottle on the shelf and fills their glasses again. It is not wine Abigail tastes when she drinks, but something stronger, sweeter and thick with liquor. She chokes a little and then swallows. The wine she’s already had is very much in effect, and she feels warm and dizzy. More dizzy still at the thought that this brutal pirate, who would kill her without hesitation should her father not meet his demands, seems genuinely sorry at the news that her mother is dead. “I would like to retire,” she manages to say after a moment, her voice quavering.</p><p>He looks up from his own reverie, a questioning look in his eyes, but he takes a torch and leads the way back to her cell without a word, catching up a bolster and a sheepskin from his pallet as he passes by. He presses them into Abigail’s arms before he locks her door behind himself.</p><p>She stands for a long time holding them after his footsteps have receded. In her absence the brazier has burned out and the room is smoky, still and untouched. She sinks down against the wall still clutching the bedding. It is none too clean but it is soft. She pillows her head and covers herself and drifts dreamlessly.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter 5</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The next morning Captain Vane does not knock. He barges through the door and then seems to think better of it, standing awkwardly in the threshold until Abigail stirs and stands. “There’s something you ought to come and see,” he tells her lowly. Even the quiet words grate on her ears.</p><p>Abigail’s head is fuzzier from the drinks than it had been after the laudanum, but she gathers herself and follows him, this time out into the bright sunlight and up a narrow flight of stairs set into the wall of the fort. She slips once and Captain Vane catches her hand and pulls her up, nearly dragging her to the ramparts. </p><p>He points out into the bay, and in the blinding light Abigail cannot make out what he wants her to see at first. It is so much larger than the piraguas and sloops that dot the pale blue water. Larger even than the Good Fortune had been, and Captain Kneeland had told Abigail that ship was a called a  brig. Even without the glass that Captain Vane is pressing into her hand, Abigail can see the red crosses emblazoned on each of her square-rigged sails. “A Spanish frigate?” she asks, confused. New Providence Island is a British colony.</p><p>But Abigail grew up in time of war, and so in a moment she thinks that perhaps they are under attack. But the row of gunports that run from stem to stern are closed, so she turns to look up behind her instead of raising the glass to her eye. Captain Van nods grimly. “A man of war. The street was up in arms about it for hours this morning. She’s flying the black, though.”</p><p>He helps Abigail open the glass fully and pointed at the frigate’s bow. There is a small black flag there bearing a white painted skeleton. “Surely another pirate vessel would mean no harm here,” she wonders shakily.</p><p>“Some men have no loyalty,” Captain Vane mutters. “That’s Flint’s flag. He’s no friend of mine.”</p><p>“Captain Flint?” Abigail asks, feeling chilled even in the warm sun.</p><p>“You’ve heard of him, then?” He seems only mildly surprised. “He would like to make himself a tyrant here, where we are all free men.”</p><p>“He has made himself a tyrant at sea,” Abigail adds with feeling, and then finds she feels uncertain about whether or not she ought to agree with one pirate against another. “My father has written to me about him.”</p><p>“Has he?” Captain Vane is silent for a long moment after the remark, so she turns to look back at him and finds him regarding her thoughtfully. “You can understand, then, the threat he poses to my position here and therefore to you?”</p><p>Abigail considers this a moment. “A tyrant must want a castle,” she ventures. He makes a very strange schoolmaster. “His ship is much larger than the others here, with more guns.” A glance around the harbor had told her that. “He intends to use it to displace you from this fort?”</p><p>The little nod of approval and quirked nod that he gives her makes her feel strangely warm. Abigail ducks her head a little in response, but frowns when he questions her in return. “How old are you?”</p><p>She begs his pardon, and he repeats the question before she answers. Her sixteenth birthday will be in only a few months. She wonders if she must seem very young to him, very naive and small, but he only extends a hand to help her descend the battlements with him. “You would’ve been a midshipman,” he remarks quietly as they go, but Abigail can think of no answer for that. </p><p>Captain Vane does not lead her back to her cell but through the narrow passageways, now teaming with activity, to his quarters. Inside Abigail sees pistols and shot on the desk and boards nailed over the high glass window. The low bed appears in the same disarray it had been the day before. WHen she looks closely, she observes that he has not changed his shirt. Perhaps, Abigail thinks, he has not slept, either. It seems Captain Flint is threat enough to concern him as much as he did her father.</p><p>“You must understand my position here,” Captain Vane pulls her from her reverie, and she notices the goblet he offers her. Abigail’s stomach lurches a little, but she takes the drink.</p><p>“I understand that you have given your word that no harm will come to me.” Perhaps the words are impertinent, but they are true. Abigail has been brought up to never fear the truth. </p><p>He levels an imperious stare at her. Abigail stares back, feeling impudent but full to brimming with righteous indignation. Is it to be now, she wonders, that his word ceases to matter to him, in the face of this new threat? Now will he stike her or throw her to his men or devise some worse fate for her? Somehow she cannot bring herself to care if any of those things might happen. </p><p>“Flint doesn’t give a shit whether or not I’ve given you my word about anything,” Captain Vane points out, mutinous and a little desperate.</p><p>Feeling wildly uncaring, Abigail shrugs, as if to ask what that is to her, and after a moment, Captain Vane snorts through his long nose and flings himself into the chair, swinging his long legs up to prop his boots up on the desk. “What is it that you suggest I ought to do?” he spits, still staring, still mutinous.</p><p>“You ought to keep your word!” Abigail thinks that that should be evident to him, but she reminds herself that he likely had no moral upbringing, so perhaps he does not know this.</p><p>“I keep my word.” He sounds furious, dismissive. “You know nothing of me, or you would know that.”</p><p>“No, I do not know you,” Abigail counters, trying to be patient. “So I have no assurance of your word unless you show it to me.”</p><p>“Show it to you?” Captain Vane repeats. “I cannot spirit you to Carolina. I cannot remove my ship from the harbor without Flint noticing, and even if I could, I could not leave the fort undefended. No amount of ransom is worth the loss of this position.”</p><p>In spite of herself, Abigail nods. She sees the sense in his argument. He is a proud man, something like a king here, and so however he might care for his promise to her, he cares more for his position and reputation. “Have you no...smaller ships?” she asks carefully. “None that might escape his notice if they came and went?”</p><p>Captain Vane’s brows make a valiant effort to reach his hairline. “Are you suggesting that I take you in a skiff to your father? Into Charles Town Harbor? I’ve mistreated you so badly that you’d like to walk past my corpse rotting on a gallows every day?”</p><p>Abigail’s mouth falls open a little in horror at the suggestion, though in the past the thought of how her father punishes pirates had only filled her with a vague sense of pride. That she might walk past evidence of it, might smell it, might see it was him seems intolerable. “No!” she cries. “No, of course not.”</p><p>“Without ship or crew, why should he allow me to sail away once he has you in his possession?” Captain Vane presses her. “If he knows Flint’s name, he certainly knows mine. I’ve held you. He must answer that.”</p><p>“He will not. You have not been cruel. I will tell him so.” Abigail has to take a deep drink before she presses on. “I will tell him… that I gave my word no harm would come to you.”</p><p>Captain’s Vane’s eyebrows are still raised in disbelief. “And you believe he will honor that?”</p><p>“My father is a man of his word as well,” Abigail assures him, drawing herself up straight. </p><p>He scoffs a little, but his eyes remain on her, interested. “You would do that, then? Give me your word that he will let me depart unharmed with your ransom?”</p><p>Abigail lifts her chin, doing her best to maintain an air of poise, like a gentlewoman. “I would.” And she extends her hand to him, watching it tremble a little.</p><p>At first she fears that he will laugh in her face, but he only nods a grave nod and leans forward in his chair to take her hand, to give it a brief squeeze and a little shake. “It’s more than five hundred miles, you know.” </p><p>Abigail nods. She’s already traced the distance on one of the charts he left with her. “The winds must be fair in the spring,” she ventures. Captain Kneeland had said as much over dinner one night. “A skiff is light, is it not?”</p><p>“Light enough to turn in the open sea,” he agrees, but his tone is more thoughtful than dismissive in spite of his morbid words. “If we both drown, who’s to hold us to our oaths?”</p><p>It’s Abigail’s turn to shrug. “I would rather drown than be shot by Captain Flint.” That she should have developed a preference regarding her own demise is cause for only a little dull surprise.</p><p>“So would I.” Captain Vane stands and looks down at her as though he is considering her truly for the first time. Abigail does her best to bear the scrutiny with the help of the dregs in her goblet. “You should rest,” he says. “We’ll leave after nightfall.”</p><p>“Leave?” Abigail wonders aloud before shutting her mouth tightly. However she has managed to persuade him, it should not be questioned. </p><p>He gives her another tight little nod, his jaw set as though he’s not quite settled about the prospect. “Of course.” Abigail sets down the cup and smooths her skirts, thinking of how utterly unsuited they are for an ocean voyage. Quarters had been close and chilly enough aboard the Good Fortune. How much worse would they be in a tiny, open craft? But in less than a week she would be safe in Charles Town or dead. Either state will be better than imprisonment, Abigail decides.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Chapter 6</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>She picks her way back to her cell alone, leaving Captain Vane to his preparations. In her absence the brazier had been relit, and she draws close to it with a chart to study the route. The wine in her stomach makes her too sleepy to focus in the dim light for long, though, so she rolls the map carefully and places it with her comforts. Sleep comes when she forces herself quiet and still, curled with her back to the brazier’s light and warmth. </p><p>When Captain Vane wakes her, his hand on her shoulder, she sits up and blinks at him. In the dim light his face is still set, focused, though not as glowering as before. “Put these on.” He presses a bundle into her hands and steps back, turning his back to her. “Gather your things.”</p><p>Abigail struggles into the loose cotton trousers, tying them under her skirts and tucking them into the heavy boots he’s brought her. Her stockings catch on the buckles as she does them up with shaking fingers. Such mannish clothes would have shocked her only a month before, but now she sees the utility of them, knows she will be grateful for the warmth of them at sea. There is a knitted wool cap that she pulls over her curls and a leather jacket that is too large in the shoulders and nearly everywhere else, but when she buttons it up, it’s warm. She uses her shawl to wrap up her things, leaving only her tattered overdress behind. What use could she have for that at sea?</p><p>The overlarge boots trip her twice on the journey from her cell to the dark beach. Captain Vane, a satchel in one hand and a torch in the other, catches her against himself each time and only curses once. Not even at her, Abigail thinks. </p><p>There are men waiting for them with a long boat, the mast twice again as tall as Abigail herself. They take her bundle from her, throw it unceremoniously in, passing her along after it with careful, clumsy courtesy. Captain Vane helps her in and then speaks quietly to the men on the beach. Around her Abigail can feel sacks and coils of rope, jugs and skins of water and folded oilcloth. Sufficient provisions, though she has only a vague idea of what might be needed for the journey they intend to undertake.</p><p>She feels rather than sees Captain Vane take up the oars. Perched in the stern, Abigail watches the lights from the beach fade, followed by the lanterns aboard the ships moored in the bay. Unaccosted, they slip out into the open sea where the wind picks up around them. Captain Vane settles the oars and reaches to unfurl two of the craft’s three sails, the largest and next-largest, stark and snapping in the moonlight as they billow and catch the breeze. </p><p>“Quiet little thing, aren’t you?” he murmurs, crouching beside her with his arm over what Abigail realizes must be the tiller. “Least when you’re not roused. Strange what it takes to rouse you, though.”</p><p>Abigail feels her face heat as she thinks of of the things she’s taken him to task for, though she cannot bring herself to feel ashamed. “Legitimate grievances, sir.”</p><p>“Legitimate grievances… and the idea of seeing me hung,” he counters, not unkindly. “Remember that. Your father’s likely to rouse at the opposite. It’s my life hanging on your word.”</p><p>Abigail nods soberly. “Mine has been hanging on yours,” she points out. “It hangs on it now.”</p><p>He seems to consider that for a moment, gazing out over the dark water as he thinks. “Can’t very well call me sir, then, can you?”</p><p>“Captain?” Abigail ventures. He is close enough that she could reach across the stern and touch him. He could touch her, does not, has not with less than the greatest care. </p><p>“Captain of precious little now,” he says darkly.</p><p>They sit looking out into the open water until Abigail ventures to ask, “Who named you, if you did not know your parents?”</p><p>“Did it myself,” he answers after a long moment. His free hand rubs thoughtfully at something under his coat, high on his broad chest. “Sounds good enough, doesn’t it?”</p><p>Abigail is too polite to venture an opinion on that subject. “My brother’s name was Charles,” she says instead. “For my grandfather before him.”</p><p>“No shit?” In the dark his face looks a little chagrined after the vulgarity. Abigail makes no mention of it. Her sensibilities feel as tired as the rest of her, though the cold sea air smells like freedom. “Think I’m too old to be your brother?”</p><p>Abigail considers this rather than asking him his age outright. If he doesn’t know his parents or his place of birth, he likely has a vague idea of his age. He cannot be older than thirty-five, may well be a younger man weathered by hardships and the sea. “Yes,” she says finally, rather than prevaricate, “but I would rather one too old than none at all.”</p><p>Older brothers had been the primary subject of gossip at the seminary, both for their exploits abroad and potential as marriage prospects. Lacking one, Abigail had been content on the fringes of the inner circle. Books were far more interesting than gossip.</p><p>Captain Vane says no more on the subject of brothers, but when a shoal of clouds takes up residence over the moon, he points up and begins showing Abigail the constellations, their names and where they point, and which will keep them on their north-northwest course toward the American coast. When Abigail cannot keep her eyes from drifting closed, he helps her lie as comfortably as she can, with a sheet of oilcoth for a blanket. She wakes once before dawn to the smell of tobacco smoke and can barely make him out sitting with the tiller, glowing cheroot in his mouth. </p><p>When she stirs next it is fully light, the sky above bright and clear. Captain Vane has his wide sash wound about his head like the Arabian servants Abigail had seen in London. The tiller is lashed to the mast, and he has his back to her and a line over the side. There is already one silvery-white fish lying behind him in the boat, closer to Abigail’s boot than she prefers. </p><p>She sits up and helps herself to water from the skin beside her. He gives her a curt nod good morning before flipping a second fish into the boat beside the first. Abigail stifles a scream, lunges backwards, and lands in a heaps as the boat rocks precariously. </p><p>Captain Vane is still grinning as he guts the fish with the knife from his belt and lays it open, showing her how to scrape the slippery flesh from the bones. The first bite makes Abigail retch but the second stays down. He watches her out of the corner of his eye, and then cuts a lime to squeeze over the second fish. The tartness settles Abigail’s stomach enough for her to get the filet down. She nibbles a little hard bread after that and drinks a little more water. </p><p>A few more fish are strung on a rope that Captain Vane rigs behind the boat, run through their gills to keep them tethered but alive. Abigail does her best to watch the process with polite attention, but she cannot help but long for a crispy brown broiled fish piping hot on a dish, eaten carefully with a knife and spoon. </p><p>The fish settled, he produces a round red mango from one of the sacks between them and slices the yellow flesh off the pit for her. Abigail imitates the way he strips it away from the skin with his teeth, uncaring of the way the juice runs down her chin. It is the sweetest thing she’s ever tasted, and she can’t help grinning at him. He spits a piece of peel over the side and grins back, teeth astonishingly white. </p><p>They share a second mango and then a third, until Abigail’s tongue tingles, and her stomach is full enough that she is glad to have left her stays behind. Captain Vane-- though he is beginning to be Charles in her mind-- stretches out in the stern a careful distance away from her, one boot up on the tiller, and closes his eyes, the suggestion of a smile still on his face. </p><p>“How tired you must be,” Abigail ventures quietly after watching him for a moment. </p><p>He cracks one eye to look at her. “Does this seem like hard labor to you?” Abigail shakes her head a little, uncertain. He yawns like a lion, not bothering to cover his mouth. “Are you going to cut my throat while I sleep?”</p><p>“Of course not!” How would she even do such a thing, even if there was any desire in her to? She feels a bit offended that he would even question her in such a way, but she supposes that with such a life as he has led that the suspicion is warranted.</p><p>“Good.” He covers his eyes with his forearm and yawns again. “The current has us now, the Gulf Stream. It’ll take us straight up the coast. Wake me if you see anything.” Turning his back to her a little, he curls in on himself and is snoring softly in the space of five minutes.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Chapter 7</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Abigail composes herself to watch the setting sun turn the sky pink and then dusky purple over her shoulder. The reefed sails creek gently in the gentle wind, and now and again a distant gull calls, but there is so much silence, so much peace that she feels as safe as she ever has even in the midst of the ocean. </p><p>The thought of leaving London, likely forever, had knotted her nerves for months, and the imagined terrors of the voyage had paled in comparison to the actual events. “I will never be the same again,” Abigail says to herself quietly. </p><p>“Might be stronger,” says a quiet voice in the darkness. Abigail starts in spite of herself. She had begun to feel almost alone even in such close quarters.</p><p>“I feel as though I’ll be afraid all the time.” In the dark, at rest, it is somehow easier to name the dread for the future.</p><p>“Are you afraid now?” He sounds a little affronted but mostly curious. </p><p>Abigail shakes her head, hoping he can see it in the moonlight. A lump is growing in her throat. No, she is not afraid in this, only that this peace will never return.</p><p>“Then tomorrow, refuse be afraid. The next day, refuse again.” His head is down as he speaks, the cigarillo from behind his ear now in the corner of his mouth as he cups his hand to light it. </p><p>It’s on the tip of Abigail’s tongue to argue, to tell him that it can’t possibly be that simple, but the words had seemed heartfelt. “Is that what you do?” she dares to ask.</p><p>“Every fucking day.” He doesn’t beg her pardon for swearing, but she did not really expect him to. Perhaps this is his way of showing cordiality, she thinks. A kind of friendly comradeship. </p><p>“Those who fear you, should they decide not to as well?” she wonders aloud, grateful for the distraction from the tears that had threatened to overwhelm her, even if it is impertinent.</p><p>Charles throws back his head and laughs, not unkindly, through a cloud of sweet tobacco smoke. She coughs a little and adjusts her position in the stern as he asks, “Does your father know what he’s getting? A wit like yours in a backward place like Charles Town?” </p><p>Having never thought of herself as any particular kind of wit, Abigail is not certain how to answer. “No one of any importance is afraid of me,” he answers after a moment. “Never have been.”</p><p>“But you have been afraid,” she ventures. “You were, and you decided not to be.” </p><p>It’s his turn to nod in the dim light. “I was a little younger than you are. I had an axe in my hand every day. I’d never used it for anything but work.”</p><p>Abigail can picture him clearly, still tall and strong, but younger, unformed, with his hair shorn around his ears, his face angry and defiant. “You ran away,” she prompts.</p><p>“Most of it was swimming,” he admits. “A crew out of Nassau found me in the water.” He spreads an arm expansively. “And here we are.” </p><p>Privately Abigail thinks that a great deal must’ve happened in the interim, but she is too polite to press him on such a personal matter, so she watches him send rings of smoke up into the sparse rigging. To her dismay, the lump in her throat has returned for no reason that she can put her finger on. She wonders how well the moonlight illumines her face, if he would see tears if she let them fall. He would never hear her, she knows. Abigail has had too much practice crying silently.</p><p>She draws in a deep shuddering breath, then decides to risk it, since he seems preoccupied with gazing at the sky and getting his cigarillo to draw properly. She wipes her nose surreptitiously on a corner of oilcloth and blinks damply at the dark waves. A good cry and then a nap to compose herself. Not so much to get through at all, when she thinks about it.</p><p>Something cool presses against her arm, and Abigail reaches for it by instinct. “Drink,” he says, in a tone that brooks no argument. She pulls the stopper from the bottle and swallows the rum with a little cough that sounds hysterical in her ears. He gives her his back, taking time to adjust the rope on the tiller and doing something that sounds suspiciously like relieving himself over the side of the boat.</p><p>When she is sniffling and tipsy, Charles settles beside her after a moment and repossesses the bottle to take a long drink himself. “All this time, all the shit that’s happened, you don’t break. But tell you a sad story, and it’s all over.” He jostles her shoulder a little with his own, his voice lighter than usual, as though he’s trying to cheer her. </p><p>“I am sorry for your hardships, but I am afraid I was thinking of my own,” Abigail admits, which is certainly very rude, she feels. </p><p>He is silent for so long that she begins to hope he’s fallen asleep again, and then he says, so softly that she almost misses it, “I’m sorry. For my part in them. Captain Low was my target. You, the value of your ransom, they were reason enough for my men to help me. And the money, well, it’s freedom. It will be.”</p><p>“Freedom from what?” Abigail composes herself enough to ask after a moment. </p><p>“From a woman,” says Charles, passing the bottle back far lighter. “From a mistake I made years ago. From Nassau.”</p><p>Abigail nods at this, unwilling to pry more even when so much remains unsaid. Perhaps because of it. She helps herself to a last drink and sets the bottle between them. “Are you going to cut my throat in my sleep?” she asks, doing her best to change the subject and lighten things a little. </p><p>“I wouldn’t dare, Abby,” he murmurs. She wakes hours later with his coat draped over her. The rest of his clothes are piled opposite her in the stern with half a dozen swords and daggers. This is alarming enough to make her sit up and look around, afraid of what she might see or not see in the rising light.</p><p>His head emerges over the side after a moment, hair streaming water down his bare back. Abigail’s eyes go even wider. She addresses the air above his shoulder, face hot with embarrassment. “Are there not sharks in these waters?”</p><p>He shrugs expressively, utterly unconcerned. “Kicked a shark in the nose once. He decided I wasn’t worth biting.” He lets go and ducks under the water again. Abigail can’t help peering over the side after him, but when he resurfaces he’s yards away. He swims wide circles around the boat. Any fear she has about how he might be left behind or swept away is laid to rest soon enough by the ease with which he cuts through the water.</p><p>When the sun is high enough that she has to take refuge in the shadow of the sails to shield herself from it, he hauls himself over the stern and lies panting against the tiller, a wide grin and a hastily found piece of sailcloth doing little enough to preserve his modesty. Abigail is not quite sure where to look, much less what to do or say. She’d been occupying herself with picking out and braiding the fringe of her shawl, but even that can only last so long. </p><p>Just when she thinks that she has no courtesy left, no patience, he sits up and reaches for his trousers. “Can’t sit still for too long without going mad,” he offers by way of explanation. “If you’re waiting for me to beg your pardon, you’ll be waiting a long time.”</p><p>“I am not waiting!” The words come too quickly, too sharply. Abigail thinks better of them as soon as they’re out of her mouth. “It is only that I did not...know where you were or what had happened to you.” It is also that he is entirely undressed, but she thinks that surely that must be self-evident.</p><p>Out of the corner of her eye, she watches a series of expressions flit over his face. Her own is set, wary. Unyielding. She has done nothing at all to be ashamed of, she tells herself. After all, he is the one who seems to entirely lack a sense of propriety. “Didn’t want to wake you,” he says after a long moment, the words muffled as he pulls his shirt over his head. </p><p>It is not quite begging her pardon, but it is enough of a consideration, an olive branch, that Abigail feels she can give him a small nod and hold out to him from her bundle the comb he left for her what feels like weeks ago. He stares at it for a moment before taking it and beginning to work it through his hair, wringing it out over the side as he does. It is nearly as long as hers, Abigail notices, and yet he seems to feel no need to tie it back neatly in a queue or cover it with a sober wig or hat. Instead, he slouches against the side of the boat, face tilted up to the sun, and plaits little braids into it, fingers working from what looks like long practice, eyes closed.</p><p>“You must be going mad too, if you’ve got nothing better to do than stare at me,” he says, not looking at her.</p><p>“Are you waiting for me to beg your pardon?” she snaps, unthinkingly. Her hand goes to cover her mouth as soon as the words are out, shocked at her own rudeness. </p><p>Charles only laughs, though, and sits up, scrubbing a hand over his face and squinting at her in the bright light. “Never expected anyone to beg my pardon. Never begged anyone’s myself, either. Never saw the point of it all. Say what you mean or don’t say anything.” </p><p>Abigail opens her mouth to talk about good manners and decorum, rules of conversation and courtesy. She thinks about how the words would sound in his ears, like a shrill and unwelcome sermon, entirely inappropriate alone as they are in the ocean. “I did not mean to stare,” she says instead. “But there is truly nothing else for me to occupy myself with.”</p><p>To her surprise he only nods. “Another day of this, maybe two. Might as well make the best of it. I’m well-paid for my time.”</p><p>Abigail thinks uneasily of the payment he expects, how she must convince her father to give it to him. But it is hers, in a way, a dowry he has made provision for to see her well-married, though she paid enough attention to the gossip at school to know that well-married does not always mean happy. Marrying well after having been kidnapped by pirates seems a dim prospect, in any case, and she does not dread the prospect of remaining unwed.</p><p>“Your man must’ve reached my father by now,” she ventures, having resigned herself to the conversation in her own mind and with her father. </p><p>“He better, or I’ll have his head. So long as you wrote plainly.” Charles is engaged in fighting the wind for the right to contain half his hair in a scrap of brown ribbon. </p><p>“I had no reason to do otherwise,” Abigail reminds him, and after a moment holds out her hand for the abused silk. “Turn around, please.”</p><p>He obeys, eyes wary as he presents her with his bent back. His hair could be Anna’s in front of her, ready to be plaited for bed. Abigail holds that in her mind as she slips her fingers beneath the mass, knotting it back as she’s seen him wear it before. The ribbon has clearly had to do service in this way for some time, leaving it dubiously equal to the task, so after a moment, Abigail reaches up for one of her own hairpins, unnecessary now under her knit cap. She secures the knot with it and then sits back, drying her hands on her skirt. </p><p>His hands are up feeling for what she’s done before he’s turned back to face her. He tests the neat little bow, removes the pin, bites it, and then replaces it carefully in the knot. All with his head bent, eyes on their booted feet, the damp planks, anywhere but on hers. </p><p>“It looks well,” she tells him after a moment, and receives a minute nod in return. Her reassurance is polite more than sincere, though perhaps it is well by piratical standards. No doubt he has never had a valet to settle his hair for him in the morning. </p><p>The gesture, the words that meant to ease things between them seem to only have worsened the tension. Abigail sighs deeply, as quietly as she can, and reaches to pull the crumpled chart from her bundle and smooth it out on her lap. That done, she offers it to him. “Show me where we are, please?”</p><p>He peers down at the section of coastline she’s folded the paper to indicate, and after a moment places his finger off the northern coast of Spanish Florida. “Here, I think. Could tell you for certain if we were closer to shore, but that would mean more chance of running into a Spanish ship.”</p><p>Abigail nods, understanding the danger and need to avoid notice. His estimate is good enough for her, along with the certainty from the sun and the stars that the current continues to carry them north. She folds the chart neatly again and repacks it with her things.</p><p>She looks up to find Charles watching her. “Intend to keep that, do you?”</p><p>It is on the tip of her tongue to remind him that he gave it to her, but she doubts that rudeness will ease things between them. “For a memento,” she says instead. </p><p>“Why’d you want to remember all this?” he presses, an edge of disgust in his voice. “Thought you’d want to put it all behind you. That’s what your father’ll want.”</p><p>Abigail is no longer certain that she remembers her father well enough to guess what he will want for her after she arrives. “I cannot make myself forget,” she says simply. “I can only remember your kindness and refuse to be afraid.” </p><p>His brows shoot up at that. “It isn’t kindness if it’s bought and paid for.”</p><p>“Have you not tried to be kind, in your own way?” He shrugs diffidently but doesn’t answer.<br/>“Do you want to remember this?” she presses. “Or will you forget the price I paid to gain you your freedom?”</p><p>The scorn spreads over his face. “It’s all bought and paid for in the end.” After that he makes a show of ignoring her in favor of rolling himself another cigarillo, an elaborate production that seems to require all of his attention. Abigail doesn’t stare, but she watches as he rolls the tobacco, cuts it, licks the edge delicately, and fusses with it until it satisfies him. “It would be better for my livelihood if you did not tell your father I was kind to you.”</p><p>“But better for your life,” she points out mutinously.</p><p>He shrugs, bent over his match. “He won’t stop hunting pirates. I don’t expect him to. But I’d rather it weren’t put about that Charles Vane has gone soft.”</p><p>Abigail thinks about this for a moment, trying to orient herself to his way of thinking. “I expect that my father and I will have a great deal to talk about. I don’t expect that your habits will be among them. I expect that he will wish to pretend I never encountered you at all.”</p><p>He nods after a moment. “Probably best.” After a minute, he clamps the cigarillo between his teeth and starts working one of the wide silver rings off his right hand. Abigail watches curiously as he holds it out to her. “Make a better memento,” he says, as though he doesn’t care about such things in the least. “Chart wasn’t even mine.”</p><p>Abigail takes it curiously and turns it over in her hand. The metal is well-worn, untarnished, and warm to the touch. It looks as though it’s spent hard years bent around his skin. It will have a respite now, safe in a box in her dressing room. A pirate’s treasure. She thanks him, receiving only another little nod in return. They watch the sun set over the water in a more companionable silence than before. He’s still sitting up fussing with another tobacco leaf when she falls asleep.</p>
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